The GOP
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
Ron Paul
The Tea Party
Purists Gone Wild: Prohibition, Revisited?
Timothy Egan on American politics and life, as seen from the West. I reached for an Irish whiskey — two fingers, neat, as my uncle used to say in trying to teach me how to drink — just after finishing “Last Call,” Daniel Okrent’s haunting and entertaining book on Prohibition. The drink was necessary, in part, because his gallop through one of the most otherworldly episodes in American history made me shudder at the parallels to this age. We are about to get a full immersion in that great moralistic experiment from 1919 to 1933, a generator of crime not just vast and organized, but vertically integrated from street thugs to judges. “Prohibition,” the latest story from the history factory of filmmaker Ken Burns, is set to run on PBS stations in October.
Whatever Happened To Separation Of Church And State?
“ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” – The First Amendment One of my closest friends is a born again Christian.
Unelectable Atheists: U.S. States That Prohibit Godless Americans From Holding Public Office
By Matthew Bulger With election season upon us, and a near constant stream of public jabs and rebuttals between incumbents and their challengers, we should focus on something besides the Americans that are running for office. Instead, let’s turn our attention to a rather peculiar set of state laws relating to elections and nonreligious Americans.
What the Right Gets Right
With the competitors for the Republican presidential nomination engaged in an intriguing and unexpected debate over the dangers of capitalism’s “creative destruction,” this is the appropriate moment to explore the question: What does the right get right? What insights, principles, and analyses does this movement have to offer that liberals and Democrats might want to take into account? I recently posed a question to conservative think tanks: If given a free hand, how would conservatives deal with the unemployed, those dependent on government benefits (food stamps, Medicaid), and, more generally, those who are losers in the new economy — those hurt by corporate restructuring, globalization and declining manufacturing employment?How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street | The Ticket
Protesters form a wall of signs at the Occupy Portland camp in downtown Portland, Oregon. (AP) ORLANDO, Fla. -- The Republican Governors Association met this week in Florida to give GOP state executives a chance to rejuvenate, strategize and team-build. But during a plenary session on Wednesday, one question kept coming up: How can Republicans do a better job of talking about Occupy Wall Street? "I'm so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I'm frightened to death," said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and one of the nation's foremost experts on crafting the perfect political message.
How to Beat Obama - By Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie
In an American election focused on a lousy economy and high unemployment, conventional wisdom holds that foreign policy is one of Barack Obama's few strong suits. But the president is strikingly vulnerable in this area. The Republican who leads the GOP ticket can attack him on what Obama mistakenly thinks is his major strength by translating the center-right critique of his foreign policy into campaign themes and action. Here's how to beat him. First, the Republican nominee should adopt a confident, nationalist tone emphasizing American exceptionalism, expressing pride in the United States as a force for good in the world, and advocating for an America that is once again respected (and, in some quarters, feared) as the preeminent global power.
Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged has been among Amazon's top 20 bestsellers for much of the past year. This year she's outsold the Rev. Billy Graham, the Rev.
Eric Sapp: Why Democrats Must Read Ayn Rand
February 7, 2013 | Like this article? Join our email list:
Ayn Rand's Gospel of Selfishness and Billionaire Empowerment Is Plaguing America
Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult | Truthout
Barbara Stanwyck: "We're both rotten!" Fred MacMurray: "Yeah - only you're a little more rotten." -"Double Indemnity" (1944)
What Republicans Think
I guess I’d say Republicans don’t have an illness; they have a viewpoint. Let me describe it this way: In the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower reconciled Republicans to the 20th-century welfare state. Between Ike and George W.
Who speaks for the Republican party? The answer is that everyone does — and therefore, no one does. Much air time and many trees have been wasted trying to explain the division, rancor and lethargy that have beset the Republican nominating campaign, now into its second year and threatening to run all the way to the party’s national convention in late August. But it’s no great mystery. Republicans have fallen prey to one of the favorite tactics of just the sort of heedless, improvident, twenty-first century capitalism they revere.
The Outsourced Party
Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom: Craig Unger on Stolen Votes, Political Attacks, Billionaire Ties
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN : Our guest for the hour is Craig Unger, who has written Boss Rove: Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom of Power . In it, he writes, "Undeniably, he’s back," talking about Karl Rove. "He has re-invented himself. He is not merely Bush’s Brain; he’s the man who swallowed the Republican Party.On the final morning of the Republican National Convention, Karl Rove took the stage at the Tampa Club to provide an exclusive breakfast briefing to about 70 of the Republican Party’s highest-earning and most powerful donors. During the more than hour-long session, Rove explained to an audience dotted with hedge fund billionaires and investors—including John Paulson and Wilbur Ross—how his super PAC, American Crossroads, will persuade undecided voters in crucial swing states to vote against Barack Obama. He also detailed plans for Senate and House races, and joked, “We should sink Todd Akin.
Exclusive: Inside Karl Rove's Billionaire Fundraiser
Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.
Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous.Poll time! I love this moment in the political season because the polls pour in and invariably something tucked in among the questions catches my eye but doesn’t grab the headlines. I have selected two that get us away from the presidential race, both of which highlight just how much trouble the Republican brand continues to find itself in despite the party’s many legislative and statehouse victories in 2010. Public sentiment is slowly drifting away from the Republicans in a way that must be giving the party’s long-range strategists sleepless nights. The first question comes from the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey released on Tuesday (it’s question number 27). It read: